Chapter 15: Fine Drink in Good Company

For such a late hour, the echoes of the Sanctuary hall revealed signs of conscious life. The shuffling of the guardian and his creaking joints. Schemer's nibbles on the dinner crumbs as he perched himself on a dining chair. Nim's incessant tapping on the armchair as she waited for Vicente to return and attempted to drown out Gogron and Telandril's sporadic snores.

She knew that she should stop drinking. Anymore and she was bound to make herself sick. Vicente had left her with a cup of water and sat her in the corner of the main hall as he escorted Mathieu across town. Nim sipped it slowly, attempting fruitlessly to stabilize her spinning vision.

"Fancy seeing you here."

The voice rang dully in Nim's ear, and she swallowed a flare of irritation as her silence was forced to an end. She turned to face an approaching Lucien and sipped loudly from her cup as she watched him draw closer.

"Speaker," she gurgled out with a mouthful of water.

Lucien raised his brows. "Oh, is it formal titles now? What a shame. Eliminator doesn't roll off the tongue quite as melodically."

"Helloooo Lucien," Nim sang out. "Better?"

He nodded. "Much. You're not avoiding me, are you?"

Nim straightened herself against the back of the chair. "What, have I done something to make you think so?"

"We've hardly spoken this entire evening."

"Yes well, we've both had quite a lot of people to entertain. Busy, busy bees we've been." If she wasn't already so drunk she might have found herself embarrassed in his company, given what she had seen him doing to Antoinetta less than an hour ago.

Lucien turned his head to look around the main hall, resting his eyes briefly on Telandril and Gogron before returning them to the small Bosmer. "It seems our guests have retired for the night, and you don't look so busy now."

Glancing around her, Nim could think of nothing to excuse herself from the Speaker's presence. Damned her and her slow, inebriated wits!

"I guess I could spare a moment of my precious time," she replied listlessly. "Where's Antoinetta?"

"Asleep," came Lucien's terse reply.

Nim squinted her eyes at him. "That doesn't really answer my question. I didn't see her come in."

"Rest assured, she's sleeping soundly."

"Where?" Lucien raised his brows at the concern in her tone. When he did not reply, Nim continued. "Alright, it's none of my business. You want to have a drink or what? I'm not sure I can get through this conversation without one."

"How cordial," he snorted and walked toward the remaining bottles out on the table. "What can I get you?"

"Hmm what have I had today," Nim mused, tapping her chin lightly with her pointer finger. Surille, Tamikas, some Cyrodiliic brandy. What's left to try? "Um, how about some of that Argonian Bloodwine that Banus brought with him. I've always been curious about it."

Lucien frowned at the request, spying only half full decanters of assorted spirits and open bottles of wine with labels too stained too read. "You better keep that interest piqued."

"Damn, I'll keep dreaming in that case. I'll have, um, whatever then. Doesn't matter now I'd drink anything like it was water."

Lucien returned with two goblets and a bottle of wine and lowered himself into the chair beside Nim. She accepted the drink with a squinted glare, and he watched as she took her first sip. Nim met his eager eyes with a stifled expression, not as vacant as usual given the flushed glow on her cheeks and slight lull of her eyelids from the copious alcohol in her system.

Lucien settled against the backrest and twisted the stem of his goblet between his fingers. "I would like to know more about you, Nimileth," he said.

"Oh is that so?" She shook her head, Lucien's body teetering in her vision despite him remaining quite still and seated. "I'm terribly dull. You don't really want that."

"And why not? We haven't had the pleasure of becoming acquainted in your time here."

Nim pointed an accusatory finger towards the Imperial's chest. "Maybe if you didn't lurk around so much and actually announced your presence upon arrival, I would be more inclined to engage."

"Is that what you think of me," he chuckled dismissively. "A lurker?"

"Does it seem a misrepresentation to you? Don't tell me you lack an ounce of self-awareness. If you're not a lurker, then what are you? What do you do for fun?"

"I don't think you really want me to answer that question truthfully," he whispered, a devilish smirk tugging at the corners of his lips as he leaned forward.

Nim could think of a few unsavory things that might tickle his fancy and rolled her eyes. "You can't possibly be that one-dimensional."

Lucien paused to sip his wine. "I play the lyre. My residence has wonderful acoustics."

This drew an exaggerated gasp from Nim as she placed a hand across her chest. "I can't believe you actually have a hobby outside of torture and dismemberment," she feigned surprise. "Are you any good?"

He shrugged. "I suppose it's subjective."

"I didn't take you as one for modesty," Nim teased and relaxed her posture. "I'd like to hear you then, make my own judgement. You should serenade me."

Lucien's lips quirked. He had prepared to be on the offensive all night, chipping away at the stone wall she kept up whenever he engaged her in conversation.

"Perhaps I'll invite you over sometime," he suggested, watching diligently for her reaction. Nim parted her lips to speak and quickly shut them as she slouched back in her chair and waited for him to continue. Lucien took a moment to study the curvature of the rare smile that crept along her mouth. "What about yourself, musically inclined?"

She shook her head softly. "I can a hold a tune, but it's nothing to write home about. I screamed a lot as a child. It strengthened my windpipes."

"Well look at us. We're half of a troupe already."

Nim caught herself chuckling and quickly cleared her throat. Was he joking with her? Was he actually being playful? Nim smiled through the unease that rang in the back of her mind as the last bit of sober caution left her.

Lucien continued. "And what do you do when you're not serving our Dread Father?"

"I'm an alchemist," she began. "I forage. I hunt. Some petty theft if I find myself in the right place at the right time. I train with Vicente as time permits. Some screaming every now and then."

"Very busy," the Speaker said sarcastically.

"Busy bee."

Lucien readjusted himself in his chair, shifting it another inch closer to Nim. "Tell me about where you grew up."

"I'm not telling you that," the Bosmer scoffed, shaking her head. "You look like the kind of man who'd try to use my past against me. You know, you're not going to get any secrets out of me with a glass of cheap wine."

"Then maybe you should have another." His response came out more brusque than intended, and he breathed slow and deep, suppressing his irritation with the Eliminator's reservations behind a forced grin. Not all of her guard was down, it seemed.

"Sure, but I'm still not telling you," Nim replied, holding out her goblet for a refill. Lucien obliged.

"What would you rather talk about then?" He steadied her goblet, wrapping his own hand around hers as he poured.

For a moment, Nim allowed his touch to linger as she studied his face. He was focused on the flowing wine, dark lashes fluttering open and closed with a blink while the candlelight flitted across his eyes. She found them much warmer now that they weren't directed at her. Pleasant. Almost.

"Let's talk about… the neighboring provinces. Have you travelled out of Cyrodiil much?"

Lucien nodded as he settled backwards and laid his elbows on the armrests of the chair.

"On contract?"

He nodded again.

"Where? Don't they have local sanctuaries for that kind of thing?"

"They do, but even assassins need to stretch their legs sometimes, experience new environments. I was in Riften last Evening Star trailing a bandit leader. His camp was based out of a cavern in the foothills of the Jerall Mountains, but he was heading home for the New Life Festival."

"A real family man, was he?" Lucien watched curiously as the little Bosmer snickered to herself and then quickly frowned. She worried the corner of her lip with her tongue, silent and staring intently at the grout between the tiles of the stone floor. She sat like that for several moments, lost in thought or perhaps suppressing nausea with thin wrinkles forming above her furrowed brows before she finally acknowledged Lucien's maintained presence beside her. "Oh, Riften. Was it cold up there?"

The Imperial narrowed his eyes at her. "It was Skyrim at the beginning of Winter."

"Yeah, I suppose I ought to have known that. Did you see a Sabre cat? What about a mammoth? I hear there are these giant spiders up there that can project venom from their mouths. You see any of those?"

"A dead Sabre cat that some hunters brought into market to sell. The eyes and fangs are valued for their restorative properties. "

Nim twirled her silver ring around her finger, attempting to focus her racing vision on one simple task. "Riften the only place you've been to up there?"

"I saw a fair bit of Markarth."

"Dwemer city, right?" Fathis had spoken of entire centurions unearthed from the Dwemer ruins of Skyrim. The thought of such a sight in its original environment sent a chill of prickled hairs up her arm. "I wonder if they're in need of any excavators," she blurted absently.

"Hmm," Lucien released a mischievous chuckle. "Are you that eager to get away from me?"

Nim started at the playful tone of his accusatory words. "No, I-"

He fought down a smile as he cut her off. "My turn to ask a question. How did Alessia Caro wrong you?"

"She…" The girl paused, debating whether or not to risk divulging anymore personal information to the talkative Speaker. But he already knew more about the Countess's assassination than anyone in the Sanctuary and her tongue was already thoroughly loosened.

"She was a vile human. A sload. As a leader, she was cruel, inhumane, monstrous. The policies that she supported led to unspeakable living conditions for the Argonians and Khajiits of County Leyawiin. I saw it all first-hand when I lived there. Really, she looked down on anyone who wasn't an Imperial, but the beast races got the worst of it. She threw them in jail, tortured them without trial, split up families, evicted them without cause. You know. She was a disgusting woman and I was not the only person she wronged. Ridding this world of her presence was a favor to Cyrodiil."

Lucien watched her face contort as she spoke, pinching in at the center as she described the Countess's cruel acts. With each utterance, Her eyes darkened eventually falling to her lap doleful and glazed.

"She hurt someone close to you," Lucien said more as a statement than a question. "You struck out of vengeance. It wasn't personal."

"It was personal," Nim insisted. She shook the mourning from her eyes and held his probing stare firmly. "She didn't need to lay a finger on me for it to be so."

"She hurt someone you loved, the man you spoke of earlier today. She was responsible for his death, wasn't she?"

Nim shifted in her chair as she stared into her goblet. Lucien followed her subtle movements, the tight squeeze of her right fist and a subtle scrunch of her nose as disgust filled her. She downed the contents of her cup. "Yes," she replied as she poured herself another.

"So," he mused with an impish smirk. "You are capable of passion."

Nim raised her brows, a curious smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

"Of fire and of fury," he continued.

"I'm not a stone Lucien, of course I'm capable of it," Nim giggled dismissively as she raised her arms above her and arched her back into a long stretch. She tucked her interlocked fingers behind her head and leaned backwards against the armchair, releasing a sedated sigh as she settled.

"Ah, but you hide it so well," he countered. "Why bother with a stoic facade?"

"Well, not everyone can be as passionate as you are, Brother."

Lucien shook his head lightly and tutted. "And it's such a waste."

"Not this again," Nim scoffed quietly as she drew a deep breath. She tilted her head back against the chair and let her eyes roam lazily over Lucien's disappointed features. The longer she met him with her content little simper, the harsher they grew.

"Fine," the Speaker huffed. "What would you rather discuss? The surrounding provinces? I bet you've never even been to any. I bet you've lived in Cyrodiil for all of your life." Lucien drank heavily and bit the inside of his cheek, his patience stretching thin.

Ignoring the thick air of condescension wafting from his tone, Nim pursed her lips and delved deep into thought. "What about… your favorite fruit."

Lucien's eyes went wide for a moment, surely having misheard, but upon spying the genuine curiosity on the Bosmer's flushed face, he decided to clarify. "My favorite what?"

"Fruit," Nim exclaimed excitedly, leaning forward so fast she had to catch herself by the armrest to keep herself from falling out of the chair. Regaining a steady posture, she started again. "The seed-bearing structure of a flowering plant."

"Um," Lucien glanced around the room, his eyes resting on the dining table and its array of cluttered plates and food scraps. "an apple I suppose."

Nim squinted at the Speaker and shook her head slow and listlessly. "No, it's not. You just picked the first thing you saw. It's okay. You can take your time. I'm obviously not going anywhere."

"Well, there are these berries that grow in the Ascadian Isles of Morrowind. Comberries." Lucien reclined in his seat as he recalled the colorful memories of his first trip to Vvardenfell. "They're not that great on their own, but when cooked with a little sugar, they make quite a delightful confection."

"And your favorite vegetable?"

"Umm, a pumpkin."

"That's also a fruit."

Lucien lowered his brows into a glower. "No, it isn't."

"'T'is," Nim slurred. "Has seeds, does it not?"

"What about a tomato? It has seeds."

"Tomato is also a fruit." Nim nodded, raising her empty goblet of wine triumphantly into the air before attempting quite unsuccessfully to drink another sip.

Lucien shook his head scornfully. "That's nonsense if I ever heard it. What about corn?"

"Thats ish a grain," she mumbled and quickly corrected for her garbled pronunciation with a dry swallow and stifled cough.

"A grain?"

"It comes from a grass just like wheat, or oats, or rice."

"Rice is a grass?"

"I'll tell you what's not a fruit. Cabbage. Leeks. Cauliflower. Carrot. Potato. Onion. Radish," she said in one fluid breath while counting off the names with her fingers. "You catching the pattern?"

"Hmm," Lucien mused, finding himself thoroughly surprised that he was entertaining such a conversation. "Then I think it would be lettuce."

Nim bobbed her head with slow enthusiasm, her eyes flitting closed. "A fine choice. So crisp, so succulent."

She sat like that while Lucien held silent, her head bobbing to a cadence only she seemed to be aware of. Lucien crossed his legs and cleared his throat which seemed once again to inform her of his lingering presence. She opened one eye. It watched him lazily as he took a sip of wine, and Lucien found himself uncharacteristically unnerved.

"And what is your favorite vegetable," he asked, the words sounding so childish and foreign on his tongue. How was it that he found himself down in the Sanctuary at one O'clock in the morning discussing produce while a very attractive Breton woman lay waiting for him in his bed at Fort Farragut?

Nim slapped her knees with unprecedented fervor having been in such a drunk stupor seconds ago. "Oh, a potato, hands down. They're extraordinarily versatile. So many ways to slice them, and so many things to do with them once they're sliced."

Lucien paused as she carried on, his eyes fixated on the relaxed sway of her limbs and the shimmer of light against the glassy green of her irises. Despite knowing it was in his best interest to take his leave, he found himself unable to depart from their crop-centered exchange.

"Have you ever had an ash yam?" He asked.

Nim's eyes glowed with the spirit of inquiry. "Are those also native to Morrowind?"

Lucien nodded. "They possess a very unique smokey flavor. I've yet to experience it in any other dish."

"Mmm, I like smokey flavor," the girl hummed. Absentmindedly, she reached out for Lucien's hand and gave it a series of rapid pats. "We should go to Morrowind then. I would like to taste these comberries and ash yams. And some of that sujamma Banus was talking about. We should go find some."

Lucien placed his free hand atop hers, mindful of the warmth that radiated from her skin beneath his palm. "Maybe when you find time to fit it into your busy schedule. It can be dangerous for our kind there."

"Oh?" She queried, her voice rising to such a high pitch he would have mistaken it for a birds chirp had he not been staring directly at her lips. "The Morag Tong, huh? They can just smell Dark Brotherhood all over you huh. I bet you reek."

Before the Speaker could respond, Nim launched herself into an aimless diatribe about the vegetation of Morrowind, quoting little scraps she picked up through reading or random facts she learned from Fathis Aren and his herbarium. Lucien endured it quietly, speaking only when he recognized the name of a particular plant and could offer up several of its alchemical properties. She laughed at that, and he enjoyed the soft melody her voice carried.

"You know, I hear that in Morrowind there are these great big trees – no. Tels," Nim said raising her brows a few times in sly satisfaction as she recalled the proper name. "Muchrooms. Mush... mushrooms. Big ones," she offered Lucien a few enthusiastic nods. "Big."

He watched her dazed eyes trace the outline of his face as she breathed slowly, her chest rising and falling in lax rhythm. Lucien's focus travelled to the amulet that rested between her breasts. His amulet, he thought silently and felt a rising heat swell within him.

"Or what about Grahtwood?" She continued. "I hear the trees move down there. Trees with legs. Legs, er roots? Mobile roots. Trees that house entire cities."

Her eyes flickered open and close, fighting the call of sleep, as she mumbled incoherently.

"Ooooh. I got it. The Hisssst. Yeah, that's it. That's the tree. The. Tree. You know about that one, don't you, Ram- Lucien."

Lucien caught his breath at the back of his throat, his eyes growing wider for only a second. Was that another man's name on her lips? The fire in his gut burned deeper as he entertained the thought of a stranger's fevered hands roaming across her russet skin. All that time she spent away from the sanctuary, the resistance with which she met him- there must be others in her life. And now Mathieu, what if the Silencer's insinuation had been true. He forced down a hard, dry swallow. The very idea left him seething.

Lucien watched bitterly as Nim's head rolled against the backrest of the chair, the soft flesh of her neck revealing itself to him. He reached toward her and brushed away the wavy strands of rust-hued hair falling against her cheek. Nim's hand snaked up against his chest and grasped his wrist, pulling his arm away from her face.

"Why- what are you looking at, hmm?" she hummed, her voice barely audible as she licked her dry lips.

"I could do so many horrible things to you right now, Nimileth," he whispered, letting himself loose in the verdure of her languid eyes. "Unspeakable things."

Nim released a lazy chuckle at the Speakers intensity and rolled her neck slowly to face him.

"I bet I could do them too. You're not so special, you know."

"I bet you could, my timid little creature."

"Dreadful things," she whispered back.

"Show me how."

"Like this." Nim placed both hands around his throat and squeezed lightly. "And a nice warm spell. A spell that would make you shut up forever."

He let her keep her grasp on him as her thumbs pressed down against his trachea. His heart fluttered, breaths quickening as she applied a minute amount of pressure.

"Do you want to know how I'd do it?" He asked.

"Not really," Nim admitted wearily, struggling to keep her eyes open and pulling her arms down to her side with a loud sigh.

"They wouldn't be able to recognize your body after I'm through with it. I'd take every inch of you and make it something greater. I'd make you bloom. You have no idea, the self-restraint I'm practicing just to keep my hands off of you."

"Do it then," she beckoned him, her eyes fluttering closed as sleep called to her. "I dare you."

Lucien hovered his hand beside her cheek as he watched her eyes toss behind their closed lids. He grazed the tips of his finger gently across the skin there, warm and rosy from the settling wine. He took her chin between his thumb and pointer finger, lifting her listless face to his as he lowered himself to her mouth. Her wine-stained breaths blew softly against his parted lips.

"Lucien?" Vicente's strident voice shattered Lucien's illusion, and he released a deep, exasperated breath as he turned to face the Executioner. Nim moved sedately out of his grasp as she rubbed her eyes, fluttering her lashes as the light returned to them

"What were you doing?" Vicente pressed using all of his strength to keep from growling.

"Nimileth and I are just making conversation," he stated, smug conviction in his simper. Within Lucien's eyes danced a flicker of defiance that begged Vicente to challenge him.

"Vicente," Nim chuckled as she shifted upward in her chair and yawned with a wide stretch. "He's going to do terrible things to me, heh heh. Isn't that a riot?"

Vicente suppressed the instinctual urge to lunge at the Speaker and tear him from his seat onto the floor. Instead he remained stone still and turned his attention to Lucien with a soft smile.

"I think she looks a little tired, don't you?" Vicente was moving toward Nim before the Imperial had even replied.

Lucien stood from his seat. "Yes, I think so." He reached out for Nim's arm, attempting to raise her to her feet, but Vicente cut him off, stepping between them as he slid an arm beneath her knees and another around her shoulders.

"I'll take her to bed then. Unfortunately, the party's over it seems. Nim, say goodnight to our dearest Speaker."

Vicente scooped Nim into his arms and proceeded toward his chambers where Lorise waited for his return. Nim giggled softly against the soft fabric of the vampire's shirt and waved to Lucien from her new vantage point over Vicente's shoulder. Lucien offered a single wave of his hand with a deadpanned glower that bore into the back of Vicente's skull.

"That's not the way to the Living quarters, Vicente."

"She's staying with Lorise and I tonight. I think she might be sick soon. Someone should watch over her, make sure she stays safe."

And Vicente did. With a burrowing pit in his stomach, he relayed the story to Lorise who sat with Nim's sleeping head in her lap as she stroked the small Bosmers hair.

"You should have believed me when I said it earlier. I told you he had ill intentions," Lorise whispered, her voice not as accusatory as Vicente knew it should be.

Vicente ground his teeth as he watched Nim's face twitch in her sleep.

He should have believed her. He should have known.